Catholic News 2
MARSEILLE, France (AP) -- As cleaners hosed down sidewalks and swept up broken glass early Friday, the manager of an Irish bar near where soccer supporters from England fought overnight with locals in Marseille's historic center said youths from the city's gritty suburbs provoked the clashes....
BEIRUT (AP) -- An international aid convoy delivered desperately needed food aid to the opposition-held, war devastated Damascus suburb of Daraya for the first time in nearly four years, but opposition activists said distribution of the aid was held up amid heavy bombardment from the air by government forces Friday....
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- For over two decades, all Maria Mancia had of her son was a single photo, a slightly blurry image of a boy, 18 months old, staring unsmiling into the camera....
DEERFIELD TOWNSHIP, Ohio (AP) -- A suspect is in custody in a shooting at an Ohio apartment complex that left a sheriff's deputy and another person wounded, officials said early Friday....
(Vatican Radio) On Thursday in the Holy See Press Office a press conference was held to present the Jubilee of the sick and disabled (10 to 12 June). The panel was composed of Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation, Bishop José Octavio Ruiz Arenas and Msgr. Graham Bell, respectively secretary and under-secretary of the same dicastery.The Jubilee was scheduled to begin on Friday with a pilgrimage from Castel Sant'Angelo to the Holy Door. Later, at 5 p.m., in the Church of Santa Maria in Vallicella, there will be a catechesis addressed to all and in particular to the deaf and blind, given by the Redemptorist Fr. Cyril Axelrod, also deaf and blind and known throughout the world, especially in China, the United Kingdom and South Africa, for his full commitment to disability issues. The catechesis will be made available in International Sign Language (ISL), in Italian sign language and in tactile sign language.On Satu...
(Vatican Radio) On Thursday in the Holy See Press Office a press conference was held to present the Jubilee of the sick and disabled (10 to 12 June). The panel was composed of Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation, Bishop José Octavio Ruiz Arenas and Msgr. Graham Bell, respectively secretary and under-secretary of the same dicastery.
The Jubilee was scheduled to begin on Friday with a pilgrimage from Castel Sant'Angelo to the Holy Door. Later, at 5 p.m., in the Church of Santa Maria in Vallicella, there will be a catechesis addressed to all and in particular to the deaf and blind, given by the Redemptorist Fr. Cyril Axelrod, also deaf and blind and known throughout the world, especially in China, the United Kingdom and South Africa, for his full commitment to disability issues. The catechesis will be made available in International Sign Language (ISL), in Italian sign language and in tactile sign language.
On Saturday 11 there will be two special moments. The first, of a religious nature, will be an appointment in various churches in the city centre from 10 to 11 am., for catechesis offered in various languages and methods of communication, entitled "Mercy, source of joy". In the Church of Sant'Andrea della Valle there will be, in Italian, a symbolic catechesis with a dramatisation of the Gospel reading and various simple gestures to accompany prayer, which will enable those with intellectual disabilities to participate.
The second will be a celebration in the gardens of Castel Sant'Angelo, from 6 to 8 p.m., entitled "Beyond the Limit", to be attended by a number of well-known artists, singers and dancers performing alongside the sick and disabled. From 2 p.m., also in the gardens, seven tents will be set up with stands representing various pastoral and volunteer associations and organisations, who will share their experience of evangelisation for and with the world of sickness and disability.
On Sunday 12 June in St. Peter's Square pilgrims will have the opportunity to listen to testimonies from people affected by sickness or disability, and from those who live in close contact with it, on the theme "When I am weak, I am strong". At 10.30 the Pope will preside at the Eucharistic celebration which will be accessible worldwide via live streaming with sign language. The liturgical service and the readings will have as their protagonists people with disabilities, and in particular among the altar servers there will be a number of people with Down syndrome and intellectual disabilities. One of the deacons, German, is deaf, the first reading will be read by a disabled Spanish person, and the second will be read in English in Braille by a blind child. All the readings will be translated into international sign language by deaf people from various countries, and the prayers of the faithful in different languages will be read by sick and disabled people of various nationalities. Then, for the first time in St. Peter's Square, the Gospel reading will be dramatised by a group of people with intellectual disabilities, to enable the text to be understood by pilgrims with mental and intellectual disabilities. At the moment of communion, the Sistine Chapel Choir will be substituted by the "Amoris Laetitia" Choir which, long with other choirs that also use sign language, made up of people with disabilities, will sing Pane del Cielo (Bread of Heaven).
During the Mass, the painting of the Virgin Salus infirmorum, conserved in the Church of St. Mary Magdalen in Campo Marzio, Rome and venerated and invoked as help of the sick, will be displayed.
The initiative of the Med Tag Foundation merits special attention. From Friday 10 June, in the vicinity of the Vatican basilicas, there will be four "Health Points", which will offer specialised health care free of charge, especially to the city's many homeless. Around 350 volunteers, including women religious, Red Cross nurses, military staff and health care workers, will offer to more than 700 homeless people the possibility of a specialised examinations in the fields of general medicine, dermatology, senology, paediatrics and gynaecology. Vaccines will be administered against pneumonia, which is one of the most serious health risks for such people. Women will be offered PAP tests free of charge.
After presenting the Jubilee for the sick and disabled, Archbishop Fisichella provided further information on the development of the Jubilee Year. "According to the data available today, the number of pilgrims who have visited Rome for the various Jubilee initiatives and who have visited the four basilicas, as well as the Holy Door of the Shrine of Divine Love, is 9,100,935. It is a significant number for the first six months of the Jubilee, which confirms the great desire of many faithful from all over the world to come to Rome to meet Pope Francis, even though there are many Doors of Mercy around the globe".
Vatican City, Jun 10, 2016 / 12:37 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After raising funds for humanitarian relief in Ukraine through a special collection in Europe, Pope Francis has established a committee to decipher the most urgent needs and get help to where it's most needed.According to a June 9 communique from the Vatican “the Pope has decided to establish a specific technical committee on-site, composed of a president and four members” to help with the distribution of the funds raised through the collection.The president of the committee, appointed by the Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin in a recent letter, is Bishop Jan Sobilo, auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Kharkiv-Zaporizhia. The Latin rite diocese is located in northeastern Ukraine, near to the front line of the separatist-held areas in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.It will be up to Bishop Sobilo, a native of Poland, to name the other members of the committee apart from one, who will be appoin...
Vatican City, Jun 10, 2016 / 12:37 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After raising funds for humanitarian relief in Ukraine through a special collection in Europe, Pope Francis has established a committee to decipher the most urgent needs and get help to where it's most needed.
According to a June 9 communique from the Vatican “the Pope has decided to establish a specific technical committee on-site, composed of a president and four members” to help with the distribution of the funds raised through the collection.
The president of the committee, appointed by the Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin in a recent letter, is Bishop Jan Sobilo, auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Kharkiv-Zaporizhia. The Latin rite diocese is located in northeastern Ukraine, near to the front line of the separatist-held areas in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.
It will be up to Bishop Sobilo, a native of Poland, to name the other members of the committee apart from one, who will be appointed jointly by the Caritas Internationalis and the Pontifical Council Cor Unum.
The formation of the committee, which has been given a year-long mandate, follows Pope Francis’ decision to take up an April 24 collection in all the Catholic parishes of Europe to promote humanitarian support for all those suffering or displaced due to the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Conflict erupted in Ukraine in November 2013, when the former government refused to sign the Association Agreement with the European Union, leading to months of violent protests.
Tensions deepened in February 2014, when the country’s former president was ousted following the protests, and a new government appointed. In March of that year, Ukraine’s eastern peninsula of Crimea was annexed by Russia, and pro-Russian separatists have since taken control of eastern portions of Ukraine.
More than 6,500 people, including civilians, have died in the fighting between Ukraine's military and the separatists. Roughly 2 million others have been forced to flee due to violence and a lack of basic humanitarian necessities such as food and medicine.
The rebels have been supported by both Russian arms and troops, according to both Ukraine and Western nations. A ceasefire was brokered and officially began Feb. 15, 2015; however, the agreement fell through and low-level fighting has continued, with new deaths reported each day.
Pope Francis’ collection was aimed “exclusively for the benefit of the victims of the war, without distinction of religion, confession, or ethnicity.”
The headquarters of the new committee tasked with distributing the funds raised will be located in the Curia of the Kharkiv-Zaporizhia diocese. Those who work with the committee, either at the headquarters or in the field, will do so on a volunteer basis to ensure that all of the funds raised by the collection will benefit those affected by the war.
According to the Vatican communique, Cardinal Parolin’s letter appointing the committee’s president also stipulated certain conditions for proposals on what the funds will be used for.
One stressed that any proposals must be received directly from interreligious or inter-confessional establishments, from individuals areas of need, or from individual bishops, including non-Catholics, where there are no formal establishments.
Since the collection and the committee are personal initiatives of the Pope, the final referents of the project are the Secretariat of State and the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which can be contacted through the Apostolic Nunciature in Ukraine.
The "technical supervision” of the implementation of the committee’s work, however, has been entrusted to Cor Unum.
In an exclusive, sit-down interview with CNA last month, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, said Ukrainians are grateful for the Pope’s help and attention to the conflict.
“We are very grateful to the Holy Father for his initiative, first of all to bring attention of the international community to the suffering of Ukrainian citizens in Ukraine.”
All Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox, are willing to cooperate with the Pope in his initiative in order to reach the people who are suffering and in need, he said, expressing his gratitude that Francis “is trying to awaken the consciousness of European Christians to that silence about the unjust war against Ukraine.”
MIAMI (AP) -- With his tuxedo loosened and her dress slightly askew, the couple unwinding with cocktails in a new U.S. ad for Bacardi's Havana Club evokes the openness and decadence of pre-revolution Cuba that many exiles have longed for....
MARSEILLE, France (AP) -- Trouble flared overnight in the southern French city of Marseille, where soccer supporters from England and local youths clashed briefly....
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- Muhammad Ali will return to his old Kentucky neighborhood one last time....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A rescue package for debt-stricken Puerto Rico has cleared a major hurdle in the House and now heads to the Senate just three weeks before the island owes a $2 billion debt payment to creditors....
